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10 images Created 7 Jul 2021

Rescuing the Reef

Scientists on an expedition to the far northern Great Barrier Reef witness the annual mass coral spawning spectacle and look for ways to help this ecosystem under pressure. Each year after a late spring or early summer full moon, a spectacular synchronised coral spawning occurs on the Reef. The Reef’s size contributes to its greatness, and from above resembles a thriving patchwork of healthy individual reefs. Yet scientists now estimate that this marine system, has experienced a 50 per cent loss in living coral cover following unprecedented back-to-back mass coral bleaching events in 2016 and 2017, with further bleaching in 2019. GBR Legacy is a not-for-profit social enterprise that brings together scientists, educators, communicators and the general public to engage in reef research. During an expedition in 2017 they identified a site in the worst-affected region that appears to have withstood the worst of the bleaching. The corals at this site are now considered to be resilient ‘super stock’, able to withstand severe heat. I joined GBR Legacy to journey back to the site with a research team from the Australian Institute of Marine Science and Dr John ‘Charlie’ Veron, known as the ‘Godfather of Coral’, who wanted to document hard coral species on a rare section of thriving reef. This football field–sized area of healthy coral has now been named the GBR Legacy Super Site – a beacon of hope in a warming sea.
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  • The expansive grandeur of the GBR can be appreciated from the air as a sprawling patchwork of reefs stretching beyond the clouds and past the horizon. From above the sprawling reefs beauty remains timeless, yet beneath the surface human-induced climate change has heavilly impacted the reef.
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  • Opal Reef was thriving when it was photographed by Taylor Simpkins on 6 October 2015 in the foreground image. By 31 May 2019 the corals in the same area had bleached, died and become overgrown with algae.
    GBR_02.jpg
  • Long time stalwart of reef research and conservation, Dr John 'Charlie' Veron (born 1945) has discovered and described more than 20 per cent of the world's coral species. Mass bleaching is a greater threat than all others, which includes outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish and run-off from land-based pollution.
    GBR_03.jpg
  • Hope for the reef comes during mass spawning, eggs and sperm float to the ocean's surface where they form a slick that becomes part of the planktonic broth. Fertilised eggs develop into larvae that are moved about by ocean currents.
    GBR_04.jpg
  • Dr Kate Quigley, a coral reef ecologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, is exploring the temperature limits of hard corals using the stat-of-the-art Sea Simulator facility in Townsville.
    GBR_05.jpg
  • These tiny baby corals of the species Acropora tenuis were spawned in controlled conditions by parent corals collected by parent corals collected during an expedition by Great Barrier Reef Legacy. They might be contrastingly small in size compared with the huge loss of coral during the back-to-back mass bleaching events, but they are a sign of hope.
    GBR_06.jpg
  • Future conservation efforts include the cooperation of commercial operators to take on reef restoration projects at important commercial tourism locations on the reef. This coral nursery reef initiative is run by John and Jenny Edmondson (Wavelength Reef Cruises) on Opal Reef on the Great Barrier Reef.
    GBR_07.jpg
  • Climate rally on the frontline of politics leading up to the 2019 federal election, climate change and the Adani coal mine were major election issues leading u[p to the federal election.
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  • Prominent marine scientists such as Charlie Veron worry about the reef's survival if the rate of C)2 entering the atmosphere continues to rise, much of which is attributed to emissions from coal-fired power station, fueled by rxport points including the Hay Point Coal terminal near Mackay in Queensland that services coal mines in the Bowen Basin.
    GBR_09.jpg
  • The 'Super Site' was discovered by the Great Barrier Reef Legacy Team is a sign of hope in a weathered sea, This site was determined as hosting the greatest diversity of hard coral species recorded on the Great Barrier Reef.
    GBR_10.jpg